Stanislaw Wokulski returns to Warsaw after a few months of absence with a huge amount of money. At the same time, Izabela Lecka and her father have financial problems. The tenement house they own must be sold. A man's drama unfolds against the backdrop of the social panorama of Warsaw. A merchant with ambitions fights for the hand of an impoverished aristocrat and, in order to get a chance to get closer to her, acquires fortune, becomes politically involved and buys into the noble community. Wokulski's hopes, desires, obsession and despair are the theme around which the multifaceted, most outstanding novel of Polish critical realism grows.
—ron_whisky